AMHERST — Amherst College is receiving $5.68 million in Federal Emergency Management Agency reimbursement for its expenses related to testing students, faculty and staff during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The grant, coming via the state, will cover the college’s costs of administering 285,870 tests between July 2020 and February 2022.
“FEMA is pleased to be able to assist Amherst College with these costs,” FEMA Region 1 Regional Administrator Lori Ehrlich said in a statement. “Providing resources for our institutions of higher education to combat the COVID-19 pandemic is critical to their success, and to our success as a nation.”
The reimbursement is similar to one FEMA announced in June for the University of Massachusetts. That grant, for $6.5 million, related to what was spent on the Amherst campus for offering 263,743 COVID-19 tests between August 2020 and August 2021.
Both reimbursements are from FEMA’s Public Assistance program, which so far has provided more than $1.2 billion in grants across the state for pandemic-related expenses.